The eight-year-old was last seen outside an elementary school in Woodstock, Ont., on April 8, 2009.

Her badly bludgeoned body was found on July 19, 2009, buried under a rock pile in a field near Mount Forest, Ont., more than two hours north of where she was last seen. The little girl was not wearing any pants and had been wrapped in garbage bags.

In 2010, Rafferty’s ex-girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, pleaded guilty to Stafford’s death and was sentenced to life in prison.

On Monday, the defence argued in its closing statement that McClintic’s key testimony — when she pointed the finger at Rafferty, portraying him as the manipulator in these events — should not believed.

She “has perjured herself over and over and over again,” said lawyer Dirk Derstine.

“There is no real way that you could find that she did anything other than poison the entire atmosphere of this courtroom while she was in it.”

During six days on the stand, McClintic told the court that she had kidnapped Stafford at Rafferty’s urging. The girl was then taken to a field in Mount Forest where she was repeatedly raped before McClintic used a hammer to kill her, the court was told.

The couple then buried the girl together, she said.

But Derstine reminded jurors that McClintic is the one with the violent history, not his client. She also had many opportunities to get help during the kidnapping, but didn’t, which indicates that she was the “engine” behind these events, he argued.

His client was just a “horrified” spectator who did not clue in that the girl was being abducted, the lawyer said. DNA evidence cannot conclusively show she was sexually assaulted, he told jurors.

Ontario Superior Justice Thomas Heeney was expected to deliver his charge to the jury following the Crown’s closing arguments.